


tonight im gonna dance (for all that we've been through)

by crypticjeggings



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dancing, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Season/Series 01, Recovery, Title from a Taylor Swift Song, maybe?? - Freeform, no ships other than the one listed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-18 06:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18115010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crypticjeggings/pseuds/crypticjeggings
Summary: The first time each of the Hargreeves siblings dance after the near-end of the world.





	1. Chapter 1

07

The first few months, Vanya was hesitant to play music ever again. Felt afraid that she might become…  _That_ again. She might lose herself to a monster. She flinches every time she hears music, and whenever she picks up the violin her hands start to tremble, and she can’t breathe, and-

Vanya has practically given up by now.

The violin is in a glass case on top of the wardrobe. All her siblings had pitched in to buy it for her, as some sort of twisted apology gift. Like they were the ones who needed to say sorry.

“I’m worried for you,” Allison whispers to her one night, after dinner. “You haven’t been playing violin recently.”

Vanya barely smiles. “Don’t be.”

Her nights are filled with tossing and turning- well, they always were, they just got worse- and the nightmares always seem to occur. The destruction of the world, Allison choking for breath as Vanya slashes her throat, screaming and pounding on the door of the chamber, her brothers choking as she lifts them into the air, Leonard’s soft smile as he scrubs her clean of blood and his milky voice as he whispers manipulations to her.

Then she wakes up, and the silence is deafening. But the silence is also welcomed, she can’t harm anyone like this, can’t do anything. She’s _powerless_ in the absence of sound. And for once in her life she’s grateful that she is.

One night, the dreams get worse than they has ever been before. Her breath is hitching and seems trapped in her chest, her entire body is trembling, and she can hear the tell-tale screeching of wood as she manages to almost rip apart the bedframe just from the sound of her heartbeat. She’s terrified of what she might do, she wants to scream but can’t because of what might happen, and the tears sting.

So she does the only thing she can think of doing.

Vanya flings herself out of bed and clambers for her violin in the darkness, and she tunes it mindlessly, unable to think past the haziness of her mind.

Then she plays. She plays for the first time in months. While she may have used it as a form of weaponry and destruction before, she uses it as a shield now. She understands the notes better than she can understand anything else in her life, the melodies pouring out of her. She’s in control.

She plays for hours. Plays and moves, dancing as she lets the music go, dances as she lets everything come crashing out in a beautiful catharsis where she’s rid of all fear, rid of all complications.

Vanya can be herself, and she can finally let herself breathe.

The next morning she notices the bags under everyone’s eyes, the way Luther seems to move slower, how Klaus yawns. She realizes that she must’ve kept everyone up with her practicing, but no one seems mad at her.

In fact, Allison even smiles at her over blueberry pancakes and rests her hand over Vanya’s. “I’m glad you’re playing again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! this is dedicated to graycloudsfillthesky for being an awesome friend/fellow writer <3
> 
> this will hopefully update daily


	2. Chapter 2

06

There’s not much Ben can enjoy anymore.

Sure, he was happy when they saved the world. Sure, he loves helping Klaus get sober and comforting him through withdrawal. Sure, he’s happy that he gets to see his siblings more often, and that they know that he’s still there.

But it’s not quite the same.

It’s like a grey-scale filter has been plastered over life, he can never really see himself as a part of it anymore. He’s _dead_ , he shouldn’t be here. He’s only here because Klaus needs him, because Klaus is subconsciously calling out to him. What happens when Klaus doesn’t need him anymore? He doesn’t know. He might disappear, or he’ll just be alone in the darkness. Forever.

Sometimes, Klaus tells him to go away for a bit, so Ben does. Unknown to his brother, Ben never actually leaves. Instead, he just wanders somewhere else, somewhere that he hasn’t been or can’t usually go, and watches.

Ben spends many days in the mansion like this. Walking through the hallways, recalling the laughter of children or the rush before missions. He fits right at home here, these memories are ghosts as well.

He spends far longer in his room than he likes to admit. Brushing his hands over his old things, pretending that he can feel them. Staring at the mirror and wishing he could see himself.

If he were still alive, Ben might be considered depressed. But he figures that ghosts can’t develop mental illnesses, and this is probably just a side effect of not being alive.

It still sucks.

He does this with other rooms of the house as well. Watches as Five slathers peanut butter onto bread and pours himself a glass of almond milk then eats in silence. Watches Vanya fiddle with her clothes as she lays across the couch for hours, staring off in silence. Listens as Allison dives into practicing her lines, having just been cast in her first movie since what happened.

(Honestly, Ben isn’t sure what’s worse. Being lonely yourself or observing the loneliness of others.)

(He lied. It’s the first one for sure.)

At first, he liked the quiet. He’d always been a shy kid, driven to be even more introverted when he realized most people just saw the bloodshed he could inflict. But time went by, and he realized how much he missed the energy of life.

So he learns to dance.

Ben can’t place a specific date on when it first happened, but it was just after the “end” of the world. He was still riding the high of what happened, and a melody floated through the window, so he did what hadn’t done since before he died (And even then, he always felt flustered whenever he tried to join in).

He moves, lets the energy course through him. And for a moment, he forgets he’s not really alive, forgets that he can never be like he once was. What matters is he’s here, in this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh i really loved writing this one


	3. Chapter 3

05

Five doesn't dance. He won't dance. Doesn't see a point, doesn't see a need, doesn't feel a want.

And he's outgrown that, or so he says. He's an old man on the inside, he's 58, he shouldn't feel an urge to move like that whenever the beat gets inside him and tells him to.

He has a lot of other excuses. He hasn't danced in 45 years, and he doesn't remember now. He isn't used to his small and gangly teenage body. Not hearing music for so long ruined the appeal.

(Most of those are lies anyways, he found a record player still intact after a few weeks, and soon was playing any music he cound find until the machine fell apart. It had made him feel less lonely.)

So Five is perfectly content with shoving his hands into his pockets and scowling down whenever someone asks him about music or dance, or staring in faked boredom when things get going. He's fine, he's okay, he doesn't need to dance. He's here to be the stoic leader, calculating his every move, even though the apocalypse was prevented long ago.

But he's walking through the city when he sees them. A group of schoolchildren, all looking to be about his (physical) age. They must've been just let out of school, and they're all in uniforms. The girls have took out their tight ponytails, and the boys have their blazers off and ties loosened.

And they're dancing.

Five stops to watch them, the way smiles have blossomed on their face, the bubbling giggles, the music crackling through the speaker and the breeze catching and carrying the sound. All of this reminds him of- no, he's not going to go there. Five is perfectly fine with watching them objectively, appreciating the teenage innocence and spunk.

It's not long before one of the girls marches up to him and asks him if he wants to join.

Dark ringlets frame her face, and she has a small smile on her face. Those combined with her boldness remind him of Allison. And the rest of the kids have stopped and are peering at him with questioning gazes. So Five takes her up on her offer, and slips his jacket off as he introduces himself to the others. He's met with grins.

Hours later when his siblings ask why he got home so late, he just shrugs and says he had stopped by the library to catch up on some research.

(He continues to "stop by the library" every week.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lets pray this shows up in the tags unlike last time


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ohhh this was a good one ive never cried while writing a fic before

04

Klaus misses Dave. A lot.

He’s also not very good at coping. That’s something everyone knows by now, but he needs to remind himself a lot that his techniques are not ones he wants to relapse into.

So he ends up walking a lot instead of sitting at home stuck in an eternal depressive episode. Letting his feet take him wherever they want, mindlessly staring off as he ends up in parts of the city that he’s never been before. The streets seems to have a new quality to them, one that he’d never noticed until now. Of course, one tends to see things differently after witnessing the end of the world but even then… There were other reasons too. He was no longer looking out of the eyes of a druggie, of a man who’s only thoughts were about where he was going to find money for his next pill.

When he started his walks, Klaus would take his new phone with him. He’d plug in the headsets and let the music enter his ears but… he found later that he enjoyed the sound of the bustling city life better. For once, he wasn’t afraid of the unfiltered world around him, and he was able to see it clearly for the first time since…. Since a long time ago. His early teen years.

A leaf blows past him, the orange colors fluttering in the breeze. A fragment of a whole, which is how Klaus feels most of the time. Shattered by a blow inflicted almost 60 years prior.

He hasn’t been in this part of town before. Odd, considering he’d been taking these walks for weeks now. It’s a park- a small one- and there aren’t many people in it. A group of children play, their laughter floating towards him as their parents watch. Several of the shops that line the street are closed for lunch, and as he continues walking as his gaze trails over the window.

Then Klaus hears a song. One he hasn’t heard in a long time. Alright, not that long ago, but these months seemed to have passed like a trickle of water dripping from a faucet, plunging into the darkness of the drain below.

The voice in the recording is crackling and barely decipherable, but Klaus hums the familiar tune and drifts towards the direction of the melody.

He finds himself standing in the doorway of an old 50’s style diner, almost empty except for an old man slumped at a booth reading the paper and a waitress cleaning a table off.

“Are you on break?” He asks, and they both to notice him for the first time.

“Yes, but you can come in if you’d like.” The man says with a smile. “We’ll be open soon.”

“Can I, uhm, play something on the jukebox?” Klaus asks, pointing a thumb towards the machine that he knew would be here for some strange reason.

The man nods. “Sure.”

Klaus approaches the jukebox, fumbling for a quarter in his pocket. He scans the song list and smiles in a melancholic way as he spots the one he was looking for. He slips the coin into the slot and selects it. Music fills the air with a song that is branded into the back of his brain, forever carved into his heart. A tear starts to roll down his cheek and for a moment, it’s like he’s back with Dave, slow dancing in a Vietnamese alley to a radio a local had forgotten outside.

And Klaus finds himself dancing again, for the first time since those nights. He’s singing too, and he can’t even care enough to check if the waitress and elderly man are staring at him with a look of disbelief or uncomfort. For some strange reason he’s not thinking about how Dave’s body was left in that Vietnamese field all those years ago, not sad about the fact that he will never get to kiss him again.

Instead he’s crying tears of bittersweet love, a compassion that fills him to the brim. He can almost feel Dave next to him, hands around his waist, whispering to Klaus that he loves him and that he wants Klaus to keep dancing. To dance for the rest of his life, never slowing down. Never forgetting Dave but never letting his memory cause him to lag behind.

Dave is whispering to celebrate what they had, and to celebrate what’s to come.

Klaus figures he can try.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO FINALLY UPDATED

03

As soon as she gets home, Allison goes to visit Claire.

She doesn’t care if Patrick didn’t want to her, didn’t care if the courts didn’t want her to. She gets home and embraces Claire, lets herself cry for her for the first time.

(Luckily, it _was_ her time to see her daughter.)

Her heart felt taped back together and stapled into her chest, just for that moment. She was _here_ , with her daughter, the one she loved more fiercely than she ever had before.

Claire sniffles, and Allison stands up to wipe under her daughter’s eyes with a thumb.

“I missed you,” Claire mumbles, and suddenly it hits Allison harder than it has before. That this is the first time they’ve seen each other in months, that they only have a small amount of time together before she has to go.

 “I missed you too.”

They go out together, the first mother-daughter date in too long. They do the basic activities that Allison wishes she could treat Claire too on a regular basis, like getting manicures or going to lunch at the restaurant that they only went to together.

It’s been a few hours and they’ve been window-shopping, Allison pausing every few minutes to smile and sign autographs for people who recognize her, when she notices that Claire is fidgeting.

“Is something wrong?” She asks, eyebrows raised. “Do you want to do something else instead?”

Claire looks away, then sighs and says, “Well, I was kind of hoping to get to spend time with you at home.”

Allison’s eyes soften, and she smiles. “Of course. Let’s just go check out this store then we can go home, alright sweetie?” Claire lights up again and nods.

They emerge with a new jacket, one that Allison had spotted it and knew Claire would love.

When they get home, they immediately fall back into their usual pace of life- or at least, what was usual in the past. Allison has prepared all the ingredients for Claire’s favorite food, a dish from Singapore called chicken rice. They’d gone with Patrick when he had to visit for work, and though he wanted to book them fancy restaurants for every meal Allison had insisted they checked out the local food courts, the hawker centers. Claire had taken one bite of the meal recommended by a local, and her eyes had lit up.

They cook together, then eat as a record player spins in the background, letting music float in the air. It’s been a while since she’d heard this song, she had put away most of her records away after the divorce.

They’re cleaning up dinner, washing dishes and wiping down tables, when Claire looks up at her mother. “Do you wanna dance?”

“Of course,” comes Allison’s response.

She puts down the pan and switches the sink off, then takes Claire’s hands and they dance together in the glow coming from the candles she’d lit earlier. She spins her daughter, the person she loves the most in this world, and Claire laughs. Allison doesn’t know how many more times she’ll get to hear her laugh, so she smiles and tries to save it in her memory forever.


End file.
